Sportswomanly behavior

What does it mean?

First of all it means being gracious winners and being gracious losers. Neither of which are easy.

Being gracious winners comes naturally to most Swedes due to this tiny little "law" of Jante. It causes people to have a completely different view on personal accomplishments than for example Americans do. It means that when you win, you will automatically look for reasons outside of yourself for why you won: you got lucky, your team mates were great (but not too great since they are a part of you in team sports), the other team got a lot of penalties, the other team was unlucky, you might have, maybe, of course due to luck, have done something right during training.

I do not agree with this chain of thought. If you won, you and your team did something right. You trained hard, you understood how to execute tactics and strategies, you read the other team's tactics and strategies and answered correctly, etc. It is your (and your teams) doing that made you win.

Of course this also applies in the other direction. If you and your team lose, you should look at what you and your team did that caused the loss. Not at what other people did so that you lost. In derby there seem to be two very common ways to react to a loss:

Savage and I in the box
Original can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/morganskort/9224920002/#

1. The other team won because of our penalties.
Avoiding penalties is part of the game. So yes, they might have won because of your penalties, but guess what: it's still due to you getting those penalties. When you get skilled enough on your skates, making the other team foul is also part of the game. Yes, in the current version of the rules, getting penalties will kill you.  That means that you go into a bout knowing that you have to manage your penalties. Which brings me to the other reaction to a loss...

Me getting ready for a gear check at my first ever bout as a ref
Foto: Anders Larsson

2. The refs sucked.
This one is a huge eye sore for me. Yes, there are refs of different skill levels just as there are skaters of different skill levels. However in most cases a ref "sucking" will either not have enough of an impact (one out of seven refs making a wrong call is easily mediated through an official review) or it will impact both sides equally (several refs making several bad calls or a jammer ref seemingly having his or her own set of rules will swap sides and make the same type of calls in the second half). Even if you truly feel that the ref's abilities swayed your bout result negatively, what is nagging about it afterwards going to give you? It will give you one thing and take away one thing: it will give you refs who do not want to ref your bouts because they are not appreciated or allowed to learn during your bouts. It will also take away your possibility to learn from the mistakes you made during the bout and get better for the next one.

Especially when playing a bout at a bigger tournament or against a more experienced league (usually that entails more experienced refs) a bit of modesty is called for. The ref that you are accusing of sucking probably has reffed longer than you have played.

I think it would be of huge benefit for the sport if all players got to do some reffing. It isn't for no reason that there are seven refs out there and even those refs have to prioritize which type of penalties they will focus on (depending on the bout).

But to get back to the original topic of sportswomanly behavior, I'd like to give a shout out to Mrs. Knuckles (from Ume Radical Rollers). As those of you who read my blog know, I have gone through major back surgery and have been trying to get back to playing since then. Before my injury, opponents tended to expect the worst if they knew I was playing. Since the operation I have heard from several different people that some times people were relieved to hear I wasn't playing (every time, I chose to take that as a compliment and ignore the negative undertone, which surely wasn't meant to be there). When Mrs. Knuckles heard I was playing at the latest tournament she was very excited for me. Then, while playing against Ume Radical Rollers, I asked to jam. Of course I shouldn't have jammed. I never do at practice because it is too risky for my body at the moment. But in that bout, we were lagging behind by an unsurmountable amount of points and we had 6 minutes to go in the second half. I needed to get shit out of my system and asked to jam. I couldn't make it out of the pack and the energy in my legs was drained quickly. Even my jammer ref seemed worried when I AGAIN got blocked to the infield and had some trouble getting up. But I got up again and again and again. Towards the end of that jam I had nothing left and was trying to stay upright behind a wall of Ume blockers. This is when Mrs. Knuckled mid-jam turned over her shoulder, looked me in the eyes and said: "Come on, Mascha! You can do this!"

Mrs. Knuckles
Foto: Lars-Olov Gärdelid